Why is ChatGPT losing users and where are they going?

The world's most recognizable AI assistant is slowly losing its market dominance. According to statistics from analytics firm Sensor Tower, cited by TechCrunch, ChatGPT's market share at the end of May this year was only 46.4% of the market. Google's Gemini came in second with a 27.7% share, and Anthropic's Claude came in third with a 10.3% share. The remaining providers, including Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Meta AI, collectively share less than 5% of the global market.

Despite the decline in share, the total user numbers are still impressive. ChatGPT boasts over 1.1 billion monthly active users. Gemini follows with 662 million, while Claude currently has 245 million monthly users. The report clearly points to a new trend. User loyalty to a particular app is no longer taken for granted, as people are now much more willing to switch providers.

One of the key factors in choosing an AI has become the company's reputation. When OpenAI partnered with the United States Department of Defense in February, it sparked a noticeable wave of user deletions of its app.

The competition is cleverly exploiting these fluctuations to its advantage. Gemini is gaining new followers mainly due to its tight integration with many other Google services and products. On the other hand, Claude is building a solid reputation as an extremely reliable and powerful tool for performing various productivity tasks.

A look at the broader market shows that AI apps recorded almost 2.3 billion downloads in the first half of 2026, with users spending more than €4.2 billion on them.